The Mike Hosking Breakfast

One Auckland school is giving the Ministry of Education a fail for its performance getting computers and internet connections to students.
The Government has forked out more than $87 million to provide devices and modems to students.
But many in low decide schools haven't received them and some high decile schools have equipment their students don't need.
Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O'Connor told Mike Hosking the school has received 137 unneeded modems, worth $70,000.
He's spoken to the Ministry of Education about it, which has given telcos access to school databases.
"We have then used our system to identify who does and doesn't have internet connectivity, which has been hugely inaccurate."
O'Connor's spoken to one parent who's a surgeon, who was flagged as not having an internet connection.
"I rang him to check whether he did have internet access given his role, and he laughed of course. That's just one example."
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It isn't cool to defend Air New Zealand. But on balance, I think we should. 
As far back as I can remember, no matter how successful our airline has been, we have been itching to hate them. In the bad old days of the NAC, Erebus and government departments, like all those businesses at the time there was a lot not to like.
But of late, they have been one of the world's great airlines. They have won any number of awards, they have been recognised for innovation and antipodean edginess, and I suppose, ultimately, they have made a shed load of money.
Overall, in their new-ish guise they have been a rockstar airline.
But even in those days, there was never a lack of those, just below the surface, on the end of the phone or a text, ready to take a pop.
Maybe it’s the curse of being big? Or having being bailed out by the state? Or being corporate? Who would know, but the balance was never there. The acrimony over the slightest bad day, never balanced with the accolades of the best days.
Now, they seem in a world of trouble with everyone who's ever bought a ticket but hasn’t been able to fly for reasons well beyond anyone's fault. The credit v refund scandal of 2020 is raging, and as far as I can work out there will be, and can be, no winners. Because essentially no one is really wrong.
To be fair, the airline has communicated appallingly. The new CEO Greg Foran was nowhere to be seen for weeks until we call him out last Friday morning, and almost as if by magic that afternoon he appeared with a message of renewal and hope that would take about 800 days.
But look at Jetstar, and this is what prompted this. They could not run for the hills as soon as trouble hit. Then they come back with some tempting offers for cheap seats then promptly cancelled the services. Now that we are in level one, guess who's back?
That is called a fair weather friend, a fly by nighter, no pun intended. That's a company here for the good times, not the long haul.
Air New Zealand has gone no where. They can't go anywhere, they have a responsibility to this country, and as a result have to run their operation in a different way to others. They don’t get to pick and choose, come and go. They are here through thick and thin, and that counts for something. Wandering in and out on a mood is easy.
So when Jetstar offers you $29 dollar fares, are you buying them? And if you are, what happened to supporting local?
On balance we are lucky to have Air New Zealand. Your refund is a lost job or more debt for a company in real trouble, and it's our company.
They didn’t wake up to give you a hard time. Longevity, relationships, and consistency and goodwill count.
No, they're not perfect. But on balance, they don’t deserve the bagging they're currently getting either.

The New Zealand Drug Foundation is defending spending up large on pro-cannabis advertising.
It's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars so far on its campaign in the lead up to the cannabis referendum.
Executive director Ross Bell told Mike Hosking campaign rules don't require the naming of private grants or donations.
He says they're playing by the rules and will comply with a spending cap once the election reporting period starts at the end of the month.
"Up until the election, we are only allowed spend about $300,000. That is about what we have raised at the moment, and we have spent that much on the campaign so far."
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Economists are warning that job losses will continue to mount, despite the Government's multi-billion-dollar extension of its wage subsidy scheme.
The first tranche of the 12-week policy – first announced on March 17 – came to an end yesterday.
And Finance Minister Grant Robertson said today the second tranche - which runs from today until August 9 - would be it; there would not be a third extension.
Since coming into force, the scheme has seen:
• $11.013 billion paid out to 1,665,724 employees• 461,815 applications approved• 51,297 applications denied• 4036 refunds, valued at $136.4 million
As part of the Government's Covid-19 recovery budget, the scheme was extended for a further eight weeks.
Starting at 9am today, businesses which have suffered a 40 per cent Covid-19 related loss in revenue will be eligible for the lump-sum payment.
Robertson – who expects 230,000 businesses would be eligible for the extended scheme – has heralded the policy a success so far, saying it has saved thousands of jobs.
"Eighty-nine per cent of businesses said the wage subsidy meant they would be able to keep operating for the foreseeable future, and only 6 per cent said they intended to make staff redundant in the next few months."
Robertson told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking the scheme had given companies breathing space. "We said on the very first day we wouldn't be able to save every job and every business, but we believe it's done the job of cushioning the blow of a totally unprecedented one in 100-year shock."
Robertson said he could understand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's anger at The Warehouse, which announced more than 1000 jobs could go, after it took up the wage subsidy scheme.
"I can understand what the Prime Minister is saying there. You have got a business like the Warehouse when you have a lot of small businesses - and I get a lot of emails - who have really dipped into savings, often into personal bank accounts to be able to keep their business going forward...
"Then we see some of our larger businesses with these big layoffs, many which perhaps aren't even that related to Covid, they probably related to plans they already had.
"Everyone's balance sheets are being stretched here... the taxpayers, the Government on behalf of taxpayer, small businesses... we want to make sure everyone is pitching in."
Asked whether some companies were taking the Government for a ride, Robertson said: "The wage subsidy scheme was designed to keep people on and we said please retain your staff for the 12 weeks. With level 1 kicking in, sales are right up there, the Warehouse themselves said their sales were right up there, we were creating that breathing space so people could come out the other side.
"They have played by the rules of the scheme but now the opportunity for all New Zealanders to take that spirit of coming together that we did for the health response [exists] for the economic one.
"Businesses will make their decisions but we are all entitled to our views about how we should be coming together."
As well as small businesses taking up the scheme, bigger international companies have also received payments.
The New Zealand arms of Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada have collectively claimed more than half a million dollars.
Despite Robertson's optimism over the scheme so far, economists are still forecasting job losses.
Independent economist Cameron Bagrie said the wage subsidy extension would "without a doubt save some jobs".
But he made clear the emphasis was on "some".
"The reality is if you're still trading 40 per cent down, you're in pretty serious trouble."
He added that it is likely New Zealand will experience another wave of job losses – some are already happening but Bagrie expects a lot more after the eight-week extension ends.
Infometrics senior economist Brad Olsen agrees that more job losses are coming.

Many of you will know the name David Walliams.
He got his first taste of international fame with Little Britain back in 2003, and has gone on to be mainstay on British television, along with becoming a best-selling children's author.
Walliams' books have been translated into 53 different languages, turned into films, and has sold millions of copies.
His latest children's book, Slime, hits bookstores next Tuesday the 16th. 
David Walliams joined Mike Hosking to talk about his new book and how he is coping in lockdown over in the UK.
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Works have restarted in Paris' fire-ravaged Notre Dame cathedral after a hiatus linked to the coronavirus pandemic.
On Monday morning operations began to dismantle scaffolding that was already in place before the April 2019 fire amid previous restoration efforts on the old structures.
This current phase of works has been deemed highly dangerous because the scaffolding weighs over 200 tons, and is thought to have melted together in areas because of the heat of the blaze.
Technicians will access the interior of the cathedral by rope to dismantle the 40,000 tubes, one by one. This phase is expected to last three months.
President Emmanuel Macron announced a timeline of five years for the conservation works, a figure widely deemed unrealistic.

A slight bounce in the economy is brightening the outlook as the country heads into the winter months and settles in to alert level 1.
Signs are emerging that the economic hit from Covid-19 might not be as bad as expected, although what actually happens from slamming the brakes on activity both at home and abroad remains uncertain.
ASB Chief Executive Vittoria Shortt joined Mike Hosking to offer her opinion on the outlook for New Zealand's economy.
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It's time to get out and about.
Festival and concert promoters are full steam ahead as we settle into Alert Level One.
Social distancing measures and restrictions on mass gatherings have gone, although strict border controls remain in force.
The Government has worked with organisers of large events to come up with a voluntary "Covid code",  to ensure rapid contact-tracing.
Rhythm & Vines founder and co-director Hamish Pinkham told Mike Hosking they have been waiting for sometime for the restrictions to be lifted.
"The timing couldn't have been better as we work towards Rhythm & Vinesand some of the bigger events towards the end of the year."
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In an English port city that once launched slave ships, an empty plinth has become the center of a debate about racism, history and memory.
For over a century the pedestal in Bristol held the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader whose wealth helped the city grow. On Sunday, anti-racism demonstrators pulled the 18-foot (5.5 meter) bronze likeness down, dragged it to the nearby harbor and dumped it in the River Avon — sparking both delight and dismay in Britain and beyond.
On Monday the empty base, surrounded by Black Lives Matter placards, drew a stream of activists, office workers and onlookers. Some posed proudly in front of it, others stood in silence, a few argued. Some Bristolians said toppling the statue was historical vandalism. Others welcomed the removal of a stain on their city.
“It should have happened a long time ago,” said Katrina Darke, a family doctor.
Chyna Lee, a 24-year-old recruitment consultant, said that she didn’t advocate vandalism, but “I’m quite happy it got dumped in the river.”
“There have been petitions and requests to get the statue removed,” she said. “I just think people weren’t listening to anything at all, and everyone is very fed up."
Images of protesters toppling the statue — one posing with his knee on its neck, evoking the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police — made news around the world. They resonated especially in the United States, where campaigners have sought to remove Confederate memorials.
Colston’s demise also reinvigorated Oxford University campaigners calling for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a Victorian imperialist in southern Africa who made a fortune from mines and endowed the university’s Rhodes scholarships.
Since Floyd’s death, Black Lives Matter protests have spread across the U.S. and to countries around the globe, including Britain, where more than 200 have been held.. Demonstrators in London, Glasgow, Bristol and other U.K. cities — whose cultural diversity is rooted in Britain’s long-vanished empire — have expressed solidarity with the United States, and also demanded change closer to home.
The protests have been predominantly peaceful but some demonstrators in London hurled objects at police and spray-painted a statue of Winston Churchill. The government said 135 people had been arrested and 35 police officers hurt, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the outbreaks of “thuggery.”
Johnson's spokesman, James Slack, said the prime minister viewed the statue-toppling in Bristol as “a criminal act” and said the police should “hold to account those responsible.” Home Secretary Priti Patel, Britain’s interior minister, said it was “sheer vandalism.”
But Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees said it was a significant moment in the city’s history.
“I cannot condone criminal damage,” said Rees, who is the city's first black mayor. “But also, as the descendant of Jamaicans who were enslaved at some point, and this man was a slaver, I won’t deny that the statue was an affront to me.”
Colston has long been a problematic presence in Bristol, 120 miles (195 kilometers) southwest of London. He was a senior official in the Royal African Company, which in the late 1600s trafficked 80,000 African men, women and children to slavery in the Americas. About 20,000 died on the journey.
Bristol went on to become Britain’s biggest port for slave ships during the early 18th century. Ships based in the city transported at least half a million Africans into slavery before Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807. Many 18th-century Bristolians helped fund the trade and shared in the profits, which also built handsome Georgian houses and buildings that still dot the city.
Colston died in 1721, leaving his fortune to charity. Modern-day Bristol has Colston’s Almshouses, Colston schools, Colston Avenue, Colston Tower and the Colston Hall concert venue, which plans to change its...

U.S. prosecutors and attorneys for Britain's Prince Andrew sniped at one another across the Atlantic on Monday, each saying the other side was to blame for the duke's failure to participate in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking probe.
Andrew's lawyers said in a statement that he has offered three times this year to speak with U.S. investigators after being assured that he “is not and has never been a ‘target’ of their criminal investigations into Epstein.”
That offer, though, came with a request that “our co-operation and any interview arrangements would remain confidential,” said the firm Blackfords LLP in London.
“Unfortunately, the DOJ has reacted to the first two offers by breaching their own confidentiality rules and claiming that the Duke has offered zero cooperation. In doing so, they are perhaps seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered,” the lawyers said.
Hours later, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, issued a statement saying the prince had tried to “falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate” even as he repeatedly declined to schedule an interview.
“If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors remain open, and we await word of when we should expect him,” Berman said.
Berman’s statement addressed only Prince Andrew’s willingness to be interviewed. It made no mention of the claims by his lawyers that the Department of Justice had advised them that Andrew is not a target of the investigation, or that they made any promise that whatever he told investigators would be confidential.
Before Monday, Berman had said that Andrew has provided “zero cooperation” to American investigators.
Epstein killed himself in a U.S. jail last summer as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
One of the women who was sexually abused by Epstein as a teenager, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has claimed that the financier flew her around the world on private planes to have sex with powerful men, and that she had sexual encounters with Andrew in London and New York, starting when she was 17.
Andrew denies the allegation.
The contrasting views of what is going on behind the scenes came after The Sun newspaper and other media organizations reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had submitted a mutual legal assistance request to Britain’s Home Office. Such requests are used in criminal cases under a treaty and are generally used when material can't be obtained on a police cooperation basis.
U.S. investigators are still examining potential criminality by Epstein's associates. Multiple women have said the financier had helpers who recruited underage girls into a network of sexual servants.
Andrew's help is being sought as a witness, his lawyers said.
“Far from our client acting above the law, as has been implied by press briefings in the US, he is being treated by a lower standard than might reasonably be expected for any other citizen,’’ Blackfords said. “Further, those same breaches of confidentiality by the DOJ have given the global media – and, therefore, the worldwide audience – an entirely misleading account of our discussions with them."